And the Suns Never Rise: A Story of Alpha Centauri

Decisions Part 1

The next time that Haruhi-nee awoke and after she had her treatment, Christiana began to tell Haruhi-nee about the choices that they had to make. Miss Harrison just stood there quietly, wiping the excess blood from her wrist.

However, Haruhi-nee stopped her. "I know that we have to decide on my treatment from this point forward." Then with a smile, she said, "I trust you to choose for me, Chris-imouto. I trust you more than anyone, and I know you will select what is best for me."

"Haruhi, I can't make that type of choice for you," Christiana complained. "If I make the wrong one you may die."

"Yes, you can, which is why Miss Harrison made you my next of kin. If I were not in and out of consciousness, then you would have to decide, anyway. Buck up buttercup. Speaking of going unconscious, I am exhausted. I love both of you very much."

"I love you too, Haruhi. I love you more than you know. Get some rest."

"I love you too," Miss Harrison murmured. "Rest for now young one. Rest well."

After the doctor gave Haruhi-nee her dose of tranquilizers, the patient had an angelic grin on her face as she said, "Christiana, I hear by give you my power of attorneyyy." Even though the last bit was slurred due to her going to sleep her message was clear.

"I'm going to have to make the final decision on her treatment," Christiana said, her voice void of all emotions.

"Yes, you will make the final determination and you will make the right one." 

———

Christiana was sitting with Miss Harrison in the administrative habitation ring's cafeteria. In front of Christiana sat a partially eaten emergency ration pack. It had been left over from the Second Wave of colonization hundreds of years ago, but since it had been frozen solid in the cold vacuum of space, it was still fresh and edible. Normally this would have fascinated the history-loving girl, but her mind was elsewhere.

"So, what are the choices that we have to choose from?" Christiana asked her older companion.

"The first is to stop the treatments and use normal medicine to treat her," Miss Harrison recounted. "In this case, she will have a twenty-five percent chance of survival. If she survives, we will fit her with the top-of-the-line prosthetics, but she will still have slight mobility issues for the rest of her life."

"The second is to change her into a vampire. Technically, this means that she will die. However, for all practical purposes, she will survive. In this case, we will reattach her missing limbs and they will be fully functional and unscarred in a week or so"

"The third is to continue treatments as we have. The vampire blood we have been treating her with will eventually reach toxic levels within the next ten days on the outside. Haruhi will then turn into a vampire. After this happens, things will continue just as with the second choice."

"The final one is to try to pull the plug. While this may be effective in ending her life, she has consumed so much vampire blood there is a chance of her turning instead of dying."

"Only a very low chance," Christiana pointed out.

"Yes. Even Duflot can only remember two similar cases back on Old Earth where the ones treated actually turned on their own after receiving similar treatments. It's not like we can conduct studies on the matter," Miss Harrison pointed out.

"Of the four choices we have, what would you choose?" Christiana asked.

Her companion grimaced. "Christiana, this is a choice for you to make. Haruhi entrusted it to you. I am here to offer emotional support while you make this incredibly hard decision."

"I understand," Christiana said before taking a bite of her ancient cod sandwich. 'She's right. Haruhi gave me her power of attorney, not Miss Harrison.'

As she crunched a few chips and took a drink of a foil packet of fruit punch, she thought, 'If Haruhi-nee were in this situation, then what would she do? Would she tend to be active or passive in her approach?'

She thought back to their middle school days. Both she and Haruhi were their brother John-nii's Keepers. As a result, they had personal combat training from their family's security forces. Having evening training as young Keepers was not uncommon. 

What was uncommon was the fact that their brother John-nii wanted to join in with the girls in their instruction. Not only was this remarkable, but teaching a male even the most basic of self-defense techniques was technically illegal. After all, every male had their own Keeper to keep them safe.

As a result, their head of security, Jessica, had decreed that while their brother could watch their training, he could not actually take part. 

The two womb-mates had gone to their Oka-sama to try to get this judgment overturned but to no avail. As their Mother said, there was nothing she could do about the law.

Haruhi had not simply sat back and passively taken no for an answer. Instead, she had actively worked and came up with a workaround for their situation. 

'If Haruhi-nee took an active role in things back then, despite just being a kid in school, then she would probably choose a more aggressive form of treatment,' Christiana realized. 'Therefore, she definitely would not want to choose to 'pull the plug' or to continue treatments until she naturally changes.'

'So using Haruhi-nee's past behavior as a guide, then she would most likely choose option one, to aggressively treat her with normal medicine and hope that she survives or to actively turn her into a vampire,' Christiana thought.

'While that reduces the choices down to two, which is a help, it still leaves me with two very tough choices,' Christiana realized. 'Now I have to determine which of those two courses to take.'